The Israeli actress, who introduced the Amazonian heroine to the big screen last spring in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and will play her again in next year’s “Wonder Woman” and “Justice League” films, took a break from DC Comics’ extended movie universe to have a few laughs in “Keeping Up With the Joneses.”

It’s about a bored suburban Atlanta couple, Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher), who become obsessed with the glamorous new pair who move onto their cul-de-sac. Natalie and Tim Jones, played by Gadot and “Mad Men’s” Jon Hamm, turn out to be undercover federal agents investigating a security leak at the high tech contractor where Jeff runs human resources.

The Joneses are sexy, worldly and probably quite dangerous. But even though they weren’t played by comedy veterans like the Gaffneys were, Gadot found them to be pretty amusing.

“My character had to be straighter than theirs,” the 31-year-old actress, model and former Miss Israel points out. “I’m a spy, I’m undercover, I can’t take any risk as a character. So that was my approach to the comedy and, also, the type of humor that I like. I don’t like the meat-and-potatoes, obvious humor. I like it when it surprises you, when it comes from an unexpected place. That’s why I wanted to play her as straight as I could. And you know, it was a lot of fun.”

Before she caught Hollywood’s attention in several “Fast & Furious” movies, Gadot had a brief comic bit as Mark Wahlberg’s girlfriend in the similarly plotted 2010 “Date Night.” “Joneses” offered a much more substantial break from fighting bad guys and monsters.

“ ‘Date Night’ was a long time ago,” Gadot notes. “This one was a bigger, more significant role, for sure. I knew that I had a certain amount of time to film a project before I had to get into the ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Justice League’ shoots, and I wanted to do something different. When I read this script, I was very entertained by it, and when I heard that Isla Fisher and Jon Hamm and Zack Galifianakis were in this movie and it was going to be directed by Greg Mottola (“Superbad”), I was all in.”

The project offered more than comedy, though. Tim, it turns out, is having doubts about the career he’s so good at and actually comes to value the fake friendship he initiates with Jeff. This is all news to Tim’s loving wife, who has her own yearning to be accepted by the neighborhood’s judgmental women.

“What I like about my character is that on the outside, she looks like a bad- ass,” Gadot explains. “She is very strong, independent, opinionated and tough. On the inside, she is very vulnerable. She is very insecure with her relationship with her husband because he wouldn’t share his feelings with her, he wouldn’t communicate with her. She is really frustrated with him.

“I think the combination of all of these things is just so adorable. On the one hand you have a very strong woman who people might be intimidated by, but on the other hand she doesn’t have so much confidence. She’s really confused and lost and just wants to be hugged.”

Well, she does do the confidence thing convincingly. After a suspicious Karen stalks Natalie at a mall, the agent yanks her neighbor into a dressing room where she’s trying on sexy lingerie.

“I must tell you that doing the lingerie scene with Isla, I just felt so comfortable around her,” Gadot says. “I didn’t know her from before, obviously, but we clicked right away from the first moment when we started working on this project. It’s very easy to perform around people you feel comfortable with, and I felt more comfortable with Isla than I would have been with any male actor — although with a male actor, I’d do that scene, but the vibe would have been different!”

There was discomfort, though, in the big action set piece where Tim madly drives a sports car while Natalie shoots at motorcycle assassins and the Gaffneys freak out in the backseat.

“What people don’t know about me is that I get carsick real easily,” Gadot confides. “So, Isla was really worried because Jon was driving the car superfast, and all of the yells and the screaming you hear her do were real; it wasn’t Karen the character, it was Isla. Me, I was just trying really hard not to get sick. It worked; no retakes or costume changes were needed.”

After all that, it was back into the warrior princess’ costume. Gadot says she can’t reveal much about what happens in “Wonder Woman” or “Justice League” — “I’d have to use the Golden Lasso and it’s in the car, it’s a whole thing,” she jokes in a bungalow at a Santa Monica hotel, referring to Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth that controls her captives — but she does acknowledge a few things.

“Wonder Woman,” directed by Patty Jenkins (“Monster”), will be mostly set during World War I and will not reflect the recent announcement from DC that, in the comic books at least, Diana Prince’s bisexuality will now be acknowledged.

“Maybe she can fall in love with a woman because she is all about the heart, you know what I mean?” Gadot says of future movies. “But this is not something that we experienced or explored yet.”

The character will have most WW accoutrements in her film — shield, sword, lasso, tiara — and while Gadot doesn’t think there’s an invisible plane, she laughs that maybe it’s there but we just can’t see it.

As for “Justice League” — which is directed by “BvS’s” Zack Snyder and will ramp up the participation of The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg along with Bats, Supes (wait, ain’t he dead?) and WW — Gadot says to expect a different tone from its downbeat predecessor’s.

“It was lighter and funnier and not as dark,” she says of “Justice League’s” European locations, which she’s just finished working on.

Bob Straus has been covering film at the L.A. Daily News since 1989. He wouldn't say the movies have gotten worse in that time, but they do keep getting harder to love. Fortunately, he still loves them.

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